On the layoff list was Shasta Wyatt, second-grade teacher at Epic for the children of Monica Hill and Majella Chube Hamilton.

Hill and Hamilton are the kind of parents the Birmingham school system wants. They strongly support the schools. They remain committed to the city, even as thousands of other families leave for schools in Jefferson County, Shelby County or Hoover. They sympathize with the hard choices the system sometimes faces.

Yet, both wondered, why Mrs. Wyatt?

How in the world could Birmingham schools let a teacher - a remarkable teacher in Hill's and Hamilton's eyes - go?

Wyatt was one of 398 employees fired in May after Birmingham schools found they were $19 million short of the required one-month, $20 million operating reserve. Though the system said it would try to rehire many of the teachers during the summer after closing several schools to improve the financial picture, Wyatt looked elsewhere for work.

Wyatt had evoked a startling change in just one year for Hill's daughter Aysiah (pronounced Asia).

In first grade, Hill said, Aysiah never had much positive to say about her day at school. With Wyatt, Aysiah came home each day talking about how her teacher praised her as a good math student. The second-grader became eager to go to school, eager to do her homework, eager to do extra math workbooks. No longer timid, the young girl started to be a leader in the classroom.

Hill saw Wyatt as an "outstanding teacher and a caring person."

Wyatt sparked a similar transformation in Hamilton's son Neal.

"Every day I'd ask him, `How was your day?'" Hamilton said. "He'd say, `Mom, I had a great day,' He spoke with a lot of expression and excitement."

"A lot of what he talked about was Mrs. Wyatt, what Mrs. Wyatt did in class."

The news that Wyatt was one of the laid-off teachers frustrated Hill and Hamilton.

No reply:

Last May, Hill wrote to Birmingham Superintendent Stan Mims to tell him how Aysiah bloomed in Wyatt's class. Hill said she felt saddened by Wyatt's departure, and told Mims that "...given the reputation of the Birmingham City Schools, I do believe losing Mrs. Wyatt is a great loss."

Hill said she got no response from the superintendent.

"I expected to hear something," she said. "I was a little disappointed."

Hamilton waited through the summer. She decided to publicly share her concern in a Commentary article in The Birmingham News on Oct. 28. In the story, she praised Wyatt's "nurturing classroom, where much was expected, everyone was valued and treated equally within a calming and fun environment."

Hamilton asked in the article: "... how could you let go of this amazing second-grade teacher?" and "Where, oh where, is Ms. Wyatt?"

Hamilton said she wanted to put a face to the numbers and show actual consequences of decisions made by the board.

"I felt strongly," she said. "We parents watch as decisions are being made that are changing - sometimes for the worse - the schools for our children."

"My husband and I continue to reside in the city of Birmingham and completely support Birmingham schools," Hamilton said. "But I think there is a level of frustration. We want to see that vision. We want to see a plan. We want to see progress being made."

The Birmingham News this month found Wyatt at her new job - first-grade teacher in Jefferson County's Lipscomb Elementary School. She's brought her skill and enthusiasm to 17 children, five of them Hispanic.

Wyatt explained that when she was laid off by Birmingham, she couldn't wait through the summer to see if she would be rehired.

Wyatt has taught in Killeen, Texas; Columbus, Ohio; and Atlanta. Early in her career she had intensive training in special education. She uses that training to tailor how she teaches each of her students in her regular classes. She focuses on academic achievement, but also on things such as teaching children to get along with each other, to be organized.

"In working with children," she says, "they need to feel enthusiastic and motivated about going to school, wherever they are."

Hope she stays:

Wyatt's principal, James McLeod, called her "an excellent teacher - very organized, pays attention to detail."

"She's doing a great job for us," McLeod said. "I sure hope Birmingham city doesn't try to get her back."

Tenure laws are the reason Birmingham loses teachers like Wyatt, said Birmingham school board member Phyllis Wyne. The system has to let untenured teachers go first.

"There are some young, bright teachers we would love to keep, but we can't," she said. "Something has got to give. Right now we're faced with right-sizing the district, but when we right-size, we can't keep the best teachers.

"That defeats everything we're trying to do," Wyne said. "I hate it."

Hamilton said she worries about the Birmingham school system, which she loves.

Years ago, she said, concerned parents would start to talk about what's next for their children in third or fourth grade. Many families leave the Birmingham system when their children reach middle-school age, and Hamilton has an older child at the private Altamont School.

"Now parents are talking about that in the kindergarten and first grade," she said. "Their decision-making is getting earlier and earlier.

"A majority of people I have talked to do not want to leave the city of Birmingham," Hamilton said. "They like their neighborhoods they live in.